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A drying track turned the first session of free practice for the MotoGP riders into a confusing and thrilling chase for times, lap times tumbling throughout. On the damp track, it was the Ducatis of Nicky Hayden and Casey Stoner that led the charts, with Marco Melandri and Andrea Dovizioso constantly close. Around the halfway mark the track began to dry properly, and the top spot started swapping hands at a pace almost too fast to follow. At one point even MotoGP rookie Gabor Talmacsi took over 2nd spot, before the rest of the field started catching up.

Once the track was fully dry - with the exception of a small stream running across the track around Turn 1 - it was Casey Stoner who set the fastest time, smashing the existing lap record in the process by over three tenths of a second. The 2nd spot went to Dani Pedrosa, who had been in and out of the top ten all day, but snatched 2nd in the dying seconds, forcing Valentino Rossi down into 3rd. All of the Yamaha men started the day off slowly, languishing in the bottom half of the timesheets, but as the track dried, all four Yamahas improved.

Randy de Puniet took 4th spot, ahead of a surprising Alex de Angelis, who has a history of good results here at the Sachsenring, while Colin Edwards was 6th fastest on the Tech 3 Yamaha. Toni Elias was 7th quickest, just ahead of Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso. But with just 0.2 seconds separating places 5 through 11, those positions were taken almost at random.

Hayden was unlucky to have been shuffled down into 8th, as the American put on a very strong show for most of the session, regularly topping the timesheets. Hayden has spoken of feeling more comfortable on the Ducati, and his results are starting to show it.

Results of the MotoGP FP1 session:

read more (http://www.motogpmatters.com/results/2009/07/17/2009_sachsenring_motogp_fp1_result_stone.html)

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